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Reliance Jio to launch 4G commercially in various cities in April 2016: Report

NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio is planning to launch 4G services in many states next month, a report in RTN Asia claimed, citing information from Jio employees.

Focusing on first three cities Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The company may start rolling out services starting April 1, 2016. Besides these metros, states like Kerala will be among the first places to see its 4G services in place.

Jio reportedly inked an ICR agreement with BSNL a few days back. It had earlier inked spectrum sharing, and ICR agreements with RCom, which is expanding its 3G network very fast to provide a viable fallback option for Jio’s 4G network.

Interstingly, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in its recent note, said that the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco may defer mega launch of fourth-generation or 4G services to December this year.

“Despite completing an employee soft launch in December 2015, we do not yet have visibility on the timeline on commercial launch by Jio. In our recent meetings with industry participants, we found a consistent view coming out of risks of Jio launch being pushed to December 2016,” the brokerage firm had said.

At 1.2 lakh 4G cell sites, Jio already has more LTE base stations in India than all other operators put together, the report said, adding that the telco has already taken its 4G signal to over 1 lakh villages and 18,000 towns and cities.